WOMAN'S WORLD

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 205, 8 December 1910, Page 6

WOMAN'S WORLD

(Conducted by "Eileen"). MRS. EDDY. STORY OF HER LIFE. The followers of the remarkable woman, Mrs. Eddy, who lias just died, are said to number about sixty thousand. There are "Christian Science" "groups" of churches in London, as well as m most of the principal cities of America; while the sect is represented in Sydney and Melbourne, and, maybe, in New Zealand. To the truly devoted "Christian scientist," Mrs. Eddy is almost as sacred as is Christ to Christians, Mohammed to the Moslems, and Buddha to the Buddhists. Whatever the exaggerations, stupidities and follies that may have been debited to Mrs. Eddy, the "Science" of this woman, half self-deluded, half charlatan, "has brought, to great numbers of men and women in her 'own country and elsewhere—so long as they retained their allegiance to it—tranquility and positive happiness, often lifting a cloud of settled temperamental gloom or of the sorrow of real misfortune" (says Mrs. Georgina Milmine in a recent account of Mrs. Eddy's life). Mrs. Milmine traces Mrs. Eddy's life and career as a religious teacher—a divinely inspired seer she is regarded as being by a large proportion of her followers—from her birth at • the little township of Bow, in New Hampshire, in 1821, right iup to the present day. Mrs. Eddy was always of a hysterical temperament, being subject to nervous fits and convulsions. Her first marriage was to one "Wash" Glover, a young stonemason, who died of yellow fever at Charleston, only six months after the •wedding. The widow returned to her parents, and began to take a great interest in mesmerism and clairvoyance, and in 1853 married a handsome, genial gentleman, "Dr." Daniel 'Patterson, an itinerant dentist. Patterson also practised homeopathy, and it is just possible that it was from him that his wife picked up not a little of that extraordinary jumble of knowledge and ignorance of matters connected with the healing art which, in later life, she was to put to such profitable employment. After thirteen years of married life this dentisthomeopathist separated from his wife. Mrs. Eddy then became a pupil and follower of one Fhineas Parkhouse Quimby, •whom Mrs. Milmine describes as the "amiable empiric who stumbled upon the psychic fact that is the foundation of 'Christian Science.' Quimby, a clockmaker at Maine, was a student of philosophy in 'his leisure hours. Quimby took up the study of "animal magnetism," and finding he possessed remarkable mesmeric powers, travelled about as a "mesmeric healer." Mrs. Mary Glover Patterson went to Quimby and was cured of a "spinal trouble." She was now forty-one. She sat at the feet of Quimby, imbibed his ideas, and later on >put them into practice, claiming, by the way, that she was the real discoverer, indeed, the "divinely inspired'" first apos-tle-of "Christian Science." Mrs. Eddy's partisans maintain that she received her inspiration from God, while Quimby's adherents ('he has to-day thousands of followers who are convinced' that he was the discoverer and founder o| mental healing in America) contend 1 that she stole the whole idea of "Christian ■Science" from Quimby. Following this Mrs. Eddy was associated with a mesmerist named Richard Kennedy, with •whom she quarrelled, and against whose "malicious mesmerism,"-as she calls it, she lias devoted many hundreds of columns of scathing denunciation. To Kennedy succeeded, as an associate, a "Dr." Spofford, of Lynn, who styled himself a "Scientific Physician," and through this "Dr" Spofford the lady met her third 'husband, Ast Gilbert Eddy, who died in 1882.

In course of time Mrs. Eddy founded "The Church of Christ Scientist" at Lynn, but support fell away, and she retreated from Lynn and attacked a wider field in 'Boston. "The result of the lady's planning and training," says Mrs. Milmine, "is that she has built up the largest and most powerful organisation ever founded by any woman in America. Probably no other woman so handicapped—so limited in intellect, so uncertain in conduct, so tortured by 'hatred and hampered by petty animosities—has ever risen from a state of helplessness and dependence to a position of such power and authority. All that Christian Science composes today—the mother church, branch churches, dealers, teachers, readers, boards, committees, societies —are as completely under Mrs. Eddy's control as if she were their temporal as well as their spiritual ruler. . . . . What Mrs. Eddy has accomplished has been due solely to her own compelling personality. She has never been a dreamer of dreams or a seer of visions, and she has not the mind for deep and searching investigation into any problem. Her genius has been of the eminently practical kind, which can meet and overcome unfavorable conditions by sheer force of energy, and in Mrs. Eddy's case this potency has been accompanied by a remarkable shrewdness, which has •had its part in determining her career. Her problem has been, not to work out the problem of mental healing, but to popularise it, and 'having popularised it, to maintain a personal monopoly of its principle." WOMEN AND ADMIRATION IS IT GOOD FOR THEM? More than that —it is necessary. That is to say, it is essential that the woman who is to be young even in old age—and sweet youth is a delightsome thing in a woman not young in years—should 'have admiration bestowed on her sometimes. There are few people whom one cannot admite in some direction, with the eyes to see good points and the heart to appreciate their value. But there are just a few, I grant, whose charms are exceed-ingly-difficult to locate—women to whom one would as soon think of paying a pretty compliment as danciijjg a jig with. Still, it's not unreasonable to think that even those, caught young, might have had their ill ways mended with the softening ] gentleness of a word of praise (says a writer in an exchange). One such I have in my mind—only one example of many. She is as hard as a piece of iron, with that deadly, caustic tongue that makes game (and cleverly, so that one may laugh, perhaps) of anything that her narrow mind does not approve; so blase that, though she be one's guest, she cannot help criticising a play in such a way that the enjoyment of

her fellow guests is at an end instantly; so strong that she can't feel sympathy for the many illnesses and ailments that assail the less fortunate beings. To end her up, she is moneyed, intellectual, and alone, yet enjoys life in her own way. There's one being now who might box the ears of one who said, "What a becoming hat you have on!" And I tremble to think of saying: "I wish you would part your hair in the middle, then you .would be like a Madonna; you have such lovely hair." Women are apt to be insincere in their desire to be more than ordinarily polite to their own sex, so that a compliment, from a woman to a woman must be quietly done as well as prettily, if it's to to be believed. The gushing woman is an atrocious creature, and nothing is more unlovely than the truly terrible desire of such to stand well with everyone. She cannot liope to do so for long, for gush is an unsubstantial thing and tactless, and tactlessness always ends by tripping over itself. Between "gush" ahd the beautiful .warm-hearted interest that everyone ought to take in other women lies a gulf unfathomable, however. One is a real thing, and the other a mockery. Tact, it is believed, is a gift that may be bestowed by kind fairies at birth, and that can't be bargained for or bought, or learned, or indeed acquired in any way but as a gift. This is true to a certain extent, but as I've never met. and dare say my readers never have, the man or woman who didn't believe themselves models of tact, it would do no one any harm to keep in bright trim the virtue of unselfish kindness, which covers many a blemish, and makes one so sensitive to the joys and sorrows of others that it would seem terrible indeed to dream of hurting them through thoughtlessness. Tact, of course, lias this great and sterling charm—it has intuition, and can see at once what lesser virtues take an age to fathom, and so lose the opportunity to help.

It's not at all a bad scheme to leave other people—there are always armies of them —the task of pointing out unpleasant happenings and ugly truths, unless those things must be set right for the public good'. Then, indeed, is the time to take one's courage in one's two hands and get the worst over quickly. But under ordinary circumstances it isn't necessary for a plain womanly woman—whose realm is in her home and her friends—to meddle. It's impossible for tin woman of small mind and mean perceptions to praise—it would be foreign to her nature altogether, and one could not imagine the praise to be anything but niggardly and watery from such a source: Yet, so does the generous habit react upon the bestower that meanness would eventually fall before it. There can be no doubt that admiration bestowed, however small the opportunity, acts as does sunshine on a flower. It makes life worth while to a weary worker or to a woman in sorrow, and it wouldn't be too much to sav that it acts as a great moral strengthener for the weak woman. We're all children more or less in the interior of our minds, and many things that please us as children don't alter much in essentials as the years go by. We always hate to be blamed, hate to lie suspected, bate to be cold shouldered. It was a dear pleasure, in the old days, to have our hair ribbons admired, our dainty frocks and shoes. Why then, and not now? If the answer be that we ought to have outgrown the old and foolish qualities, then a further cry must be: "Let's get back to childhood's standard, then, for Ave were warm-.hearted and had only the failings of youth in those days —not the cruel hardness that sees nothing worth .praising, and that lets weariness and faint-heartedness harass, for want of the dear tact that would heal with comradely admiration!" JURY OF WOMEN. •INGENIOUS JUDGE CONSULTS THEM ON MERITS OF DRESS DISPUTE.

London, October 30. A highly ingenious method of overcoming a difficulty was adopted on Monday by Judge Snagge at Wellingborough (Northamptonshire) County Court. He was 'hearing an action brought by a dressmaker to recover the price of a dress. Her client resisted the claim, and urged that it did not fit. To support her contention .she wanted to have the dress tried on in Court to show that it was a misfit. Unlike certain London judges, Judge Snagge does not claim to be an expert on dress, so he called upon all the women in Court to act as assessors, and these retired with the defendant to another room, where they saw the garment tried on. BV a majority they reported that the garment was too long, but that it could be remedied, and his Honor told the plaintiff that she must put matters right before she got a verdict.

TELEPHONE PARAGON GIRL WHO NEVER LOST HER TEMPER. For a period of six years, which terminated only a short time ago, Farnham, Surrey, possessed the paragon of telephone operatdrs--a girl who never made mistakes nor lost her temper. But there is gloom among the telephone users of Farnham, for the girl has got married—to a young man who' used to listen to her > voice over the telephone wires. Miss Lilla Patrick was the operator's, name—she is Mrs. Lefevre now—and just before her wedding the Farnham telephone subscribers remembered that never once during the whole six years she had presided over the plugs and lines of the Farnham exchange, had a single complaint been made against her. This was a record not to be passed over lightly, so the Farnham subscribers subscribed again —this time for Miss Lilla Patrick—and presented her with £l7 and their good wishes for a happy married life. She received, in addition, many other separate wedding presents from telephone users. From the "hobble" to the crinoline is a far cry, but up to within the last week or so both had their champions in Victoria. Fashion 'had no charms for Mrs. Auchterionie, of Moe, whose death is just reported in the Melbourne papers at the age of 95 years. In her early youth at Dalkeith, in Scotland, she wore the then prevailing poke bonnet, cape and crinoline. She arrived in Victoria in such a costume 55 years ago, and, despite the wholesale desertion by her sex of this style of dress, she were it 'to the last.